


Ngk, and Other Expressions of Love

by Ghostinthehouse



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:28:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25021675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostinthehouse/pseuds/Ghostinthehouse
Summary: Crowley can't say the words. He's never been able to. They just tangle on his tongue into a mess of meaningless consonants. He still tries.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 248





	Ngk, and Other Expressions of Love

He can't say the words. He's never been able to. They just tangle on his tongue into a mess of meaningless consonants. He still tries.

* * *

It starts in Eden. _You're cute when you're huffy like that_ , he means to say. _I love that._ But what comes out of his mouth is a strangled, "Nnnnnnyr." He switches tactics, decides it's probably this corporation he's still getting used to, he'll figure it out later. "They just said to get up here and make some trouble."

* * *

It only takes a handful of times and tries and failures for him to concede his confessions are hopeless. He's a demon, after all. Hell's good at making hope into an extra torment. He can't say the words. But he can feel them. He can feel all of them, like lumps in his heart and his throat. He coughs them up over the centuries, letting his demonic tongue turn them into strangled noises. It's a refuge, a freedom to spill his real feelings in a way that doesn't make Aziraphale recoil from something he isn't yet ready to hear. To let his love soar from his heart and stumble from his tongue, and fall uncaught to the floor between them.

Aziraphale doesn't seem to mind the cacophony of ragged sounds that spill from him whenever his emotions are roused, only waits patiently each time for him to finally come out with a coherent sentence.

When Crowley eventually manages to give his angel something coherent to latch onto, he does, and the conversation swoops onward as if Crowley's spluttering had never happened at all.

He's never sure whether to feel bemused at Aziraphale apparently not caring about his entirely demonic strangled sounds, or bereft that Aziraphale is never going to understand his declarations and respond in kind.

* * *

"Angel," he says, once, a millenia or so before Golgotha, inventing an endearment that's also a deception, and to his delight, it emerges clearly. He says it again, and again it comes out making sense, " _Angel_!"

Aziraphale huffs. "Do you mean to tell the whole world?"

 _What, that I love you?_ Crowley starts, but all that comes out is, "Nrgh, nnnnnnnyyyya." He slouches, deflated again, against the tavern wall, and touches his mug to Aziraphale's. "S'what you are," he compromises, the silent addition _to me_ still locked behind his teeth. "Angel."

* * *

He can't say the words, but he puts them in his name, like an apology 80 years too late.  
"What does the J stand for?"  
_J'aime_ , he tries to say. _Je t'aime. My love. I love you!_ "Yrg. Ngk. Ss..." he deflates with a shrug. "Just a J really."

* * *

_She's right,_ he tries to say when the nun interrupts them. _I love you..._ Only a string of sounds emerges from his mouth. "Oh, unh, ah, ngk, yhr." He takes refuge in sarcasm and despairing hope. "We're just two supernatural entities looking for the notorious son of Satan..."

* * *

"It's over," Aziraphale spits. "Over for good!"

"Well then," he says. He tries one last time. _I love you, I'll miss you._ "Ngk." Breathe. Deflect. "Have a nice Doomsday!"

* * *

Afterwards, after everything, Aziraphale smiles at him. "None of this would have happened if you weren't, deep down, just a little bit of a good person."

"And if you weren't," Crowley begins slowly, picking words he hopes will carry his meaning, "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing." Do you know? he wants to say. Do you know how much I love you? He knows better than to try after six thousand years. He's too tired to fight his own tongue right now anyway, and this calls for more than a strangled confession. Aziraphale deserves something coherent enough to respond to. He reaches for his glass instead, and takes a deep breath, trying to pour his feelings into words that don't tangle. "To the world."

And Aziraphale meets him halfway and pours just as many feelings back. "To the _world_."

* * *

Weeks later, the first time Aziraphale tries to pull his coin from behind Adam's ear, Crowley grumbles, _Someone, I love you_. "Nnggghh," his mouth groans. "Angel. Do you have to?" He breaks off to find Adam staring at him rather than at Aziraphale. "What?" He's getting the oddly uncomfortable feeling that Adam actually understood him. Caught his actual intended words under the groan. Nobody's ever done that before, not even other demons - just as well, perhaps - and he almost squirms under the boy's steady gaze. It's like having his dark glasses snatched unwillingly off his face when he was counting on them shielding him. Like one more defense or protection he'd come to rely on being stripped away from him, leaving him vulnerable.

Aziraphale jumps in defensively. "It's just a speech impediment, Adam, there's no need to be rude about it. It happens all the time. Humans have them too."

Crowley huffs wordlessly, and for once it is just a huff. Just a breath of air. He doesn't dare try for the words he wants to say right now. There's too much chance of them actually being heard by Someone. Or at least, someone called Adam. After a moment, he settles for, "Angel, please. Don't fuss about it. It's no big deal, right?"

"No need to be rude, certainly." Aziraphale tugs his waistcoat down, straightens his bow-tie. "I understand perfectly well that high emotions affect your speech patterns. I've only had six thousand years of being your friend to realise that."

"Riiiiighht," Crowley drawls and gives Adam a long look, because if the boy gives him away instead of letting him find his own way through the tangled maze of his blocked words to Aziraphale's ears, there's going to be trouble somewhere along the line.

Adam stares at his feet, his ears going red under Crowley's gaze. "I know what Dog's trying to tell me," he says, "even when it only comes out as barking or whining. I think it carries over to other things."

Aziraphale goes pink in the cheeks. Crowley goes as red as his hair. They look at each other.

Crowley draws a deep breath, and takes Aziraphale's hand. _I love you. I'll always love you. I always have._ "Ngk," he mumbles.

Aziraphale laces his fingers through Crowley's and lays the index finger of his free hand across Crowley's lips, hushing him. "Yes, dear," he says, and his smile is entirely for his demon, "I know."


End file.
